


Prologue

by Cerdic519



Series: The British Revolution [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: 17th Century, Army, England (Country), English Civil War, F/M, Fifeshire, Friendship, Gay, Historical, London, Love, M/M, Murder, Navy, Nobility, Northumberland, Oxfordshire, Parliament (UK), Politics, Religion, Royalty, Scotland, Slash, Stucky - Freeform, Thirty Years War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24997600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: This chapter contains background stuff, not vital to the main story but useful to those who want to know who was who, where was where, what was what and who was doing what before all hell breaks out once the story starts. It will be published June 30th through July 3rd, then the main story (which is fully written) will start with Chapter One on Independence Day and continue with at least daily instalments until complete. There will be twelve chapters in total and an Epilogue.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: The British Revolution [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809640
Kudos: 11





	1. Contents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contents page.

PROLOGUE  
_Introduction_  
_Who's Who_  
_Where's Where_  
_What's What_  
_Who Did What_


	2. Introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contents page.

This is a historical fiction. All the events and characters, save those modern ones obviously transplanted into the story and a few more created to allow them to 'fit in', are real, as (unfortunately) was the way that some of them acted. It is set in a darker time, when people not only sought to destroy their political opponents but targeted their families and friends, tore down their monuments, stole their property and did it all because they knew that they were right and their opponents were by implication evil personified. 

Yes.

Apologies to the de Gaie family who owned Hampton Gay Manor House (Stalwarton Hall in the story) as I have supplanted them to get my heroes close to the centre of the action. Apologies also to the father of the Great Montrose, Earl John (died 1626), for giving him two illegitimate daughters, especially as one of them was the terrible Lady Agnes. I wanted to tie the Winter Soldier into a fitting family; I did not know when writing that the Buchanan title was subsequently awarded to the great marquis's descendants when they became dukes in 1707.

Finally, although I have endeavoured to keep things as close to real life as possible (no matter how disgusting that got at times), spellings are a problem as in these early days of printing many people spelled their own names several different ways. I have adopted the most common spellings.

Buckle up – it's going to be a bumpy ride!

MDCXXV


	3. Who's Who

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who was who in Anno Domini 1625.

[ ](https://postimages.org/)  
[](https://gasstation-nearme.com/open-24-hours)  


MDCXXV

**Stephen Roger Amerike (16)**  
Second son of Joan, Baroness Hexhamshire, and Ellis, second son of the recently-expired Nebuchadnezzar Earl of Bradstock, so he is heir presumptive to the Hexhamshire title at least for the next few years. Stephen has recently done something rather unwise.

 **Aidan Amerike, Lord Haydon (17)**  
Stephen's elder brother with whom he gets on well.

 **John Amerike (14)**  
Stephen's younger brother whom... he very generously allows to live.

 **James 'Jamie' Buchanan Barnes (16)**  
Born eight days before Stephen who may have a very slight crush on him. Also, the sky may be blue. James is the son of the late Susanna Graham, an illegitimate daughter of John Earl of Montrose; Susanna was a friend of his mother who therefore became Jamie's ward. He and Stephen are also very distant cousins.

 **Joan Amerike, Baroness (of) Hexhamshire (34)**  
Stephen's mother. Holder of a degree in Being An Embarrassing Parent (Double First). Her family has royal blood as they are descended from an illegitimate daughter of King John (1199-1216), which makes Stephen and Jamie eighteenth cousins twice removed! Technically her husband is in charge of the estate, but no man who knows her would be stupid enough to put that thought into words!

 **Peter Amerike (36)**  
Baroness Joan's first cousin and the member of parliament for the Hexhamshire constituency. Married to the fearsome Penelope with some seven children, including his two-year-old successor Paul. He also has a brother Paul (25) who is a mercenary.

 **Ellis Amerike, Baron (of) Hexhamshire (34)**  
Born a Bradstock, the large and rather dopey husband of Joan who looks perpetually exhausted for reasons their sons really, _really_ do not want to think about. He changed his name to that of his wife because she told him to, which pretty much sums up their relationship.

 **Edgar, Earl of Bradstock (36)**  
Stephen's uncle and Ellis's elder brother, he became earl on his father Nebuchadnezzar's death at the start of 1625. Married to the unpleasant Countess Naomi with two sons, Henry (3) and Edgar (1). 

**Edwin Bradstock (34)**  
Elllis's younger twin brother. Married to the terrifying Lady Agnes, who writes the sort of historical fiction that makes people regret that they learned to read. She was the elder sister of Susanna; it was through her that Jamie came to Staward, the Hexhamshire family estate. Edwin has four sons: Thor (17), Baldur (14), Vithar (11) and Vale (9). 

**King Charles Stuart (24)**  
He became heir to the throne on the death of his much more popular elder brother Henry Frederick in 1612 and has just succeeded his father King James the Sixth and First as the story is starting. Charles is what is technically called an idiot.

 **Princess Henrietta Maria of France (15)**  
Charles's future wife, the daughter of King Louis the Thirteenth of France. Their marriage will only 'work' when a certain impediment is removed, after which it will 'work' rather too well for just about everyone's liking.

 **Princess Elizabeth (38)**  
Charles's older sister. She had married Frederick the Fifth, the ruler of a small west German state called the Rhine Palatinate back in 1613 and they already have five children, but he was dispossessed of his native lands when he tried for the vacant throne of Bohemia in 1618, starting what would later be called the Thirty Years' War in Germany. The new English king, like his father, suffers much criticism for their failure to help her.

 **George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (32)**  
A great example of a 'cure' being worse than a disease. The late King James the First had been deeply enamoured of a favourite, one Robert Carr, so that gentleman's enemies introduced Villiers to the king as an alternative. It worked – rather too well, as the young man went from a commoner to duke in record time. He had recently gone to Spain with Charles (to whom he has been transferring his attentions) in an ill-starred attempt to secure a Spanish marriage; King James's death just as he was extremely displeased with the duke not long after his return was.... timely.

 **Diana Prince (19)**  
Runs a bakery from part of the Bradstock-Amerike holdings in London and also a cleaning agency. Both are cover for her information network means that she knows pretty much everything about everyone. Not a women that anyone crosses more than once.

 **John Graham, Earl of Montrose (48)**  
He has seven children by his wife but only one son, James (12), of whom we shall be seeing quite a bit. His two illegitimate daughters in the story, Edwin's wife Lady Agnes and Jamie's mother Susanna, are fictional.

MDCXXV


	4. Who Did What (Recently)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some recent events leading up to 1625.

**Recent Events: Historical**

1568: The Dutch (modern Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) rise up in revolt against their distant Spanish overlords. Despite beset with more than her share of problems Queen Elizabeth helps them as best she can.  
1583: Failed English attempt to colonize Roanoke Island.  
1587: Queen Elizabeth has her cousin Mary Queen of Scots beheaded for plotting against her. She had also almost certainly struck a secret deal with Mary's son and successor James the Sixth; he would get a regular pension and even the English crown one day - _if_ he behaved.  
1588: The first of four Spanish Armadas only further ties Catholicism to foreign rule in English eyes. Half of the 'Invincible Armada' never returns to Spain; King James closes his ports to them as they circumnavigate the British Isles in their attempt to get home. Europe reels at the shocking English victory.  
1594: Ferdinando Earl of Derby, Queen Elizabeth's cousin and a potential rival successor to James, dies in mysterious circumstances aged just thirty-five. A dispute over his lands weakens his descendants' already weak claim to the throne.  
1594: King James's wife has a son, Henry Frederick.  
1596: King James's wife has a daughter, Elizabeth.  
1599: Birth of one Oliver Cromwell, to a fairly well-off branch of a rich Huntingdonshire family. He will marry one Elizabeth Bourchier in 1620 and at the time this story starts will have two sons and a daughter.  
1600: King James's wife has a second son, Charles.   
1603: Queen Elizabeth dies and James's succession is greatly eased by her advisor Robert Cecil.  
1604: The Anglo-Spanish War ends in stalemate after nearly two decades.  
1605: The Gunpowder Plot. It either comes close to blowing up King, Lords and Commons, or is a clever ploy engineered by the wily Cecil to make the wavering king resist religious reforms.  
1606: King James (40) becomes enamoured of young Robert Carr (19).  
1606: Union Flag created.  
1607: The English parliament refuses an act of union with Scotland.  
1607: Jamestown established in Virginia, named for the king.  
1609: A ship taking more colonists to Jamestown is driven ashore on Bermuda, settling that island.  
1610: Colonization of Cuper's Cove (now Cupids, Newfoundland), first English settlement in the future Canada.  
1611: King James Bible published.  
1612: Robert Cecil dies. The formerly solid royal control of parliament begins to slip.  
1612: King James's promising elder son Henry Frederick dies (18).  
1613: King James forces Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, to agree to a divorce on the grounds of impotency (ouch!) so that his now ex-wife Frances can marry the king's favourite Robert Carr, who is created Earl of Somerset. The new earl's friend Sir Thomas Overbury objects and is imprisoned in the Tower on false charges; he dies in suspicious circumstances soon after.  
1613: King James's only surviving daughter Elizabeth (17) marries Frederick the Fifth (17), ruler of a scattered territory called the Rhine Palatinate in modern western Germany.  
1614: In an attempt to displace Somerset, his enemies introduce the king (48) to the handsome young George Villiers (22). The king's attentions are successfully switched – too successfully, it will turn out.  
1615: The Overbury Scandal explodes despite the king's efforts with both Somerset and his wife eventually convicted of murder. The king later commutes their death sentences but they are finished as political players.  
1616: Villiers is made Master of the King's Horse and Viscount Villiers.  
1617: Villiers is made Earl of Buckingham.  
1618: Villiers is made Marquess of Buckingham.  
1618: Elector Frederick makes the fateful mistake of pushing his claim to the vacant throne of Bohemia (modern Czechia), starting what will become the Thirty Years' War in Europe. His reign lasts one winter before he is defeated and he subsequently (1623) also loses his homelands.  
1619: Villiers is made Lord High Admiral.  
1619: King James's wife Queen Anne, from whom he had become estranged in later years, dies.  
1620: The Pilgrim Fathers leave for North America. They aim to settle just north of Virginia around modern New York but are blown further north to Plymouth Rock.  
1623: St. Kitts, England's first Caribbean colony, founded.  
1623: Villiers is made Duke of Buckingham. He accompanies the young Prince Charles, to whom he is shifting his attentions, to Spain in an attempt to win a Spanish bride for him, but the trip is a fiasco. On their return both men demand war with Spain. James refuses.  
1625: King James dies and is succeeded by his second and only surviving son Prince Charles (24).

MDCXXV

**Recent Events: Fictional**

1593: Aged twenty-five, Edward Amerike succeeds his father as Baron of Hexhamshire. His estate is almost exclusively in south-west Northumberland in northern England, well off the beaten track.  
1605: Joan (15), daughter of Baron Edward, marries her distant cousin and family friend Ellis (15), second son of Nebuchadnezzar Lord Hampton who is in turn the son of Phineas Earl of Bradstock. She gets her new husband to adopt her Amerike name.  
1607: Birth of Aidan Amerike, Stephen's elder brother.  
1608: Birth of James Buchanan Barnes, the offspring of Susanna Graham and probably either one James Buchanan or one James Barnes, servants of hers. She is an illegitimate daughter of John Earl of Montrose; her elder sister Agnes had married Ellis Amerike's younger brother Edwin.  
1608: Birth of Stephen Roger Amerike ('Captain Amerike').  
1610: Birth of John Amerike, Stephen's unpleasant younger brother.  
1612: Baron Edward dies and is succeeded by his only son Jeremy (20).  
1612: Susanna Graham dies.  
1613: Baron Jeremy dies after a tenure of only four months, killed by an irate husband who found him in his wife's bed. Jeremy is succeeded by his only sister Joan who moves her family into Staward Hall.  
1620: Death of Phineas Earl of Bradstock (80). He is succeeded by his son Nebuchadnezzar. The latter's son and heir Edgar marries one Naomi Rhode.  
1621: Edgar's wife gives birth to a son, Henry.  
1624: Edgar's wife gives birth to a son, Edgar.  
1624: Baroness Joan has young James Buchanan Barnes brought to Staward. It is possible that one of her sons develops a very slight crush on the newcomer (hint: Stephen).  
1625: Death of Nebuchadnezzar Earl of Bradstock (63). He is succeeded by his eldest son Edgar.

MDCXXV


	5. Where's Where

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Important places in the story as they were in Anno Domini 1625.

**Places of 1625: The Stuart Realms**

**England**  
A kingdom comprising 42% of Charles's British lands with a population around 4¼ million (70% of the total). In comparison the Spanish Empire has around 30 million people whilst the Holy Roman Empire and France have around 20 million each. Roads are terrible, and there is little in the way of communication between its many communities although there is a royal letter service between the chief towns.  
England has since 1603 been in a Personal Union with Scotland, when James VI of Scotland became James I of England. This sort of arrangement was not unknown and only rarely resulted in a merger of countries when the two had some reason so to do (say like being stuck on a small island together). James had tried to create Great Britain at the start of his English reign but had failed. His promising eldest son Henry Frederick had died in 1612, so when he died just before the story starts he was succeeded by his second son Charles.  
London, the capital of England is far and away the largest city, its 350,000 population is over ten times that of its nearest rivals; Norwich, York and Edinburgh. Note that this figure covers the small City of London accurately known as 'the Square Mile', and all the other places contiguous to it. About a mile upstream is the City of Westminster (see below). London only has one bridge at this time, oddly enough London Bridge.

 **Wales**  
A principality¹, usually ruled over by the eldest son and heir of the English monarch. It constitutes 7% of the king's lands and has some 200,000 people, 3% of the total. Taking a vertical line down the middle, the east is mostly English-speaking and the west mostly Welsh-speaking, except for the Anglicized area of Pembrokeshire in the far south-west.

 **Scotland**  
A kingdom occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, 25% of the king's lands. Population at this time around 400,000, 7% of the total. It too is predominantly Protestant with a Catholic presence in an even more thinly populated Highlands up north. 

**Ireland**  
Nominally a kingdom ruled by the king of England, constituting 26% of the king's lands. Population around 1,250,000, so about 19% of the total. Roughly speaking 15% English settlers (mostly Protestant) along the east coast and a few other towns, 10% Scots settlers (Protestant) in the northern province of Ulster, and 75% native Irish (Catholics) elsewhere. It has its own parliament, but that body is totally subservient to the governor and to Westminster.

 **British West Indies**  
The British possessions in the rich Caribbean start out with just a few hundred people on St. Kitts when the story begins. These islands would wield great influence at home for the next two centuries, thanks largely to the sugar trade.

 **British North America**  
The recently-established northern colonies (Massachusetts Bay) and the tobacco-trading southern ones (Virginia) are divided by the New Netherlands based around the future New York. Total English population is around 2,500 split evenly between the northern and southern colonies, but will rise to 75,000 that by the time the story ends. At that point the New England colonies were doing better, with 33,000 to the Middle Colonies' 14,000 and the southern ones 28,000, but the balance was already beginning to tip the other way and New England would thereafter tend to lose out. Colonization is done strictly on a private basis; the new king will later try to rein in those who want to leave for a new life overseas – with disastrous results in one instance.

MDCXXV

**Places of 1625: The Four Centres Of Action**

 **Staward, Northumberland, ENGLAND**  
There is no Staward village, just the Hall with the nearest village being Catton about a mile away. The town of Hexham, just south of Hadrian's Wall, is nine miles away, and Staward is about midway between Carlisle (west) and Newcastle (east), both being a shade over thirty miles away. Edinburgh is about a hundred miles north and London three hundred miles to the south.

 **Wormit, Fifeshire, SCOTLAND**  
A small village on the northern shores of the Fife Peninsula, with the nearest town Dundee a boat-ride away across the two-mile wide estuary. The villages of Balmerino and Coultra lie three and four miles to the west respectively. The town of Burntisland and the ferry to Edinburgh is just over thirty miles away to the south, and London a further four hundred on from the Scottish capital.

 **Stalwarton, Oxfordshire, ENGLAND**  
A small hamlet of just twelve houses by the River Sewell. Charlton-on-Sewell lies just under a mile west across the river via the footbridge; Fraser's and Chatton's cottage is a further half-mile south of Charlton (almost out of screaming distance!). The aspiring town of King's Linton lies two miles south as the crow flies but four via road, while Oxford is six miles further on by that road. London is about seventy miles to the south-east via the direct route through the dangerous Chiltern Hills.

 **Westminster, Middlesex, ENGLAND**  
The centre of British government is a mile from London but a city in its own right, with its own Trained Bands to defend it. The families' three houses lie at the Whitehall end of what would later become Downing Street. As mentioned before only London Bridge existed at this time, so Westminster was geographically something of a cul-de-sac.. Note also that parliament sat in the old Palace of Westminster (destroyed by fire in 1834) and that the king's principal residence was Whitehall Palace (destroyed by fire in 1698) just over the road along the eastern side of modern Whitehall so within a short walk of the Commons. Handy for those sudden and unannounced royal visits....

MDCXXV

**Places of 1625: Europe**

 **France**  
Almost the same country as today but minus some of its eastern border provinces. It held a few small territories in the future Canada, including Quebec. Currently ruled by King Louis the Thirteenth, Henrietta Maria's father.

 **United Provinces (of the Netherlands)**  
Roughly the modern Netherlands, fighting to be free of Spanish rule and for control of the more Catholic Netherlands (modern Belgium and Luxembourg) to join them. Currently ruled by Maurice of Orange as Stadtholder (sort of steward) but he will die the month after this story starts and be succeeded by his half-brother Frederick Henry.

 **Spain**  
Roughly the same country as today, but its dynastic ties with the Holy Roman Empire provided a land-route from the Mediterranean up through what is now eastern France to the Spanish Netherlands (roughly the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) which had been in revolt against it for nearly six decades. It was also possessed of a major American empire covering most of the Americas; Portugal had been its great rival but that country's crown had fallen to the Spanish through inheritance back in 1680, so Spain now owned its African coast and Far Eastern possessions as well. Currently ruled by King Philip the Fourth who also controls Sardinia, Sicily, Naples (i.e. the southern third of the Italian peninsula) and Milan.

 **Holy Roman Empire**  
A confederation covering Germany (a name then used for the whole thing) along with the Alsace and Lorraine areas of France, Austria, Czechia, western Poland, Slovenia and parts of north-western Italy. It had originally stretched to the gates of Rome itself, hence the name, but its northern Italian provinces had long broken away. It was nominally an elective monarchy but the Hapsburgs of Austria, whose cousins ruled in Spain, mostly had things to themselves. It was also heavily divided; what would become known as the Thirty Years' War had started in 1618 and was about to enter its second phase. Currently ruled by Emperor Ferdinand the Second, whose forcing out of Frederick the Fifth from Bohemia had started the Thirty Years' War seven years back. Ferdy was Philip of Spain's first cousin.

 **Denmark**  
Then leading a Personal Union with Norway and including parts of what is now southern Sweden, King Christian the Fourth also ruled the Imperial Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Importantly for our story he was King Charles's uncle, his sister Anne having been Charles's mother.

 **Sweden**  
Broke away from a Personal Union under Denmark a century before, and relations have been bad ever since given the huge border between the two countries. Sweden is currently ruled by King Gustavus Adolphus, who will be Important to the story.

MDCXXV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _1) Wales being part of England was why the national flag remained the St. George's Cross, and why the Welsh cross (same design as England but yellow on black) did not later appear on the Union Jack. Now as then the Prince of Wales is also Duke of Cornwall, and the duchy that the duke owns there provides his revenue._


	6. What's What

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What was what in Anno Domini 1625.

**Institutions of 1625**

**Monarchy**  
Literally meaning 'one ruler', the power of the Crown has been in decline ever since Henry the Eighth spent all the money and left it broke. He also used parliament to bolster his position especially with regard to the succession. His daughter Elizabeth managed to at least slow the rot but, facing both Spanish invasions and needing to help the Dutch, she too had to sell off Crown lands¹. The situation worsened much more quickly under her successor James who was openly contemptuous of the English parliament and kept a visibly expensive court while making frequent demands for money. Still, his son has to be an improvement – doesn't he? 

**Parliament**  
The English parliament has two chambers, a Lower House (the Commons) and an Upper House (the Lords). The Lords are all hereditary except for the bishops while the Commons are elected, although usually by very small electorates². The two Houses are of roughly equal strength when the story begins. There were no political parties but there were by this time established Court (pro-monarch) and Country (anti-monarch) groupings. Great Elizabeth had kept a lid on her opponents by a mixture of sharp practices (making new constituencies in areas where she had strong support), bribery (cash and/or titles) and outright terror (she was Henry the Eighth's daughter!). She bequeathed her chief adviser Robert Cecil to her successor James the First, but when he died in 1612 the new king did not bother with the system he had set up so by 1625 his mostly Puritan opponents were very firmly established in parliament. 

**The Army**  
There wasn't one. Soldiers were raised as and when needed, rich men usually forcing their own tenants to go into battle with them with whatever weapons they had to hand. Counties and larger cities had Trained Bands (semi-professional soldiers) on call at all times, but they were hardly ever willing to serve outside their own area and their training was at best patchy. Finally the local militia - literally peasants with pitchforks - was on call if they were really, really desperate.

 **The Royal Navy**  
The ships that had once crushed the Spanish Armada were a shadow of what they had once been. James had limited military spending and pursued a policy of peace abroad, which had been unpopular and had seen naval spending greatly reduced. Coastal communities lived in fear of raids by Mohammedan pirates who would carry them away to a life as a galley-slave.

MDCXXV

**Religions of 1625**

 **Protestantism**  
Taking its name from the Protestation against papal abuse of power the century before, it had almost inevitably fractured into many different sects. It was a much simpler form of Christianity; the saying was 'no bells and smells'. Scotland and England practised different forms of it (see below).

 **(Roman) Catholicism**  
Strong in Wales, northern England and northern Scotland, and dominant in Ireland. In Europe the Thirty Years War had by the time this story starts dissolved into a standard land-grab fuelled by religious differences. Charles' friendship with Catholic Spain was bitterly resented, and after the Spanish Armada the religion was strongly linked to foreign oppression.

 **Anglicanism**  
Great Elizabeth's compromise, about 90% Protestantism but with some Catholic bits that she enjoyed like stained glass, frescos and candles. Few really liked it, but no-one had been brave (or suicidal!) enough to tell her that. Sneakily, the deal had also enabled her to fine recusants (Catholics who were too openly Catholic) in return for her protection; non-recusants paid smaller fines and church taxes as well as having to go to the Protestant church from time to time. Some Protestants, annoyed that she would not let them tie their religious opponents to posts and set fire to them as her sister had done so readily, had turned to....

 **Puritanism**  
More a movement than a religion, the Puritans wanted a purer Protestantism (i.e. 'faggots and fire' for their Catholic enemies). Elizabeth had always been one step ahead of them, but they outwitted the Stuarts much more easily and by this time were a growing force in parliament. Or would be when, as now seemed inevitable, a new one was called.

 **Presbyterianism**  
The Scots' chosen form of Protestantism, in which matters were decided at a local level by church elders. James, knowing that bishops meant better central control, had managed to cajole the Scots into taking back their bishops but only with the promise of their not interfering in government. His son, unfortunately for just about everyone, would not honour that deal.

MDCXXV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _1) Today in the United Kingdom the monarch surrenders the Estate (in 2018 yielding an annual income of about £325 million or $400 million) to parliament at the start of each reign for the stupidly-named Sovereign Grant (latest valuation £40 million or $50 million). It's like your savings generating a yearly income of £50,000 ($60,000) then the government helping itself to 80% of that, leaving you just £10,000 ($12,000). Oh, and having people moan about how you keep getting 'public money'. Not exactly a great deal, is it?_   
>  _2) Sometimes zero. The most (in)famous example was Old Sarum, a decayed town north of Salisbury which returned two members despite no-one actually living there. The lucky landowner merely had to register some of his tenants as resident in the place even if they lived somewhere else, so they got the right to vote - and if they wanted to keep a roof over their heads, they voted the way they were damn well told! The system had its upsides however; one our best eighteenth century prime ministers, William Pitt the Elder, represented Old Sarum._


End file.
